Tag Archives: real estate

What the revival of an old Pike/Pine building for new real estate offices and a wine bar might tell you about the future of this corner of Capitol Hill

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(Image: Coldwell Banker Bain Capitol Hill)

An architectural rendering of the planned new home for Coldwell Banker Bain Capitol Hill

The revival of the building at the top of Pike/Pine where 14th Ave meets Pike and Madison will turn the former auto row-era grocery into a new neighborhood headquarters in an industry that knows more about the value of Capitol Hill land — and how it is changing — than anybody.

Todd Shively, principal managing broker of Coldwell Banker Bain Capitol Hill, said change and development typically follows his firm’s moves over the years as real estate professionals push and pull the boundaries of the neighborhood.

With plans for opening in the first quarter of the new year, Coldwell Banker Bain is redeveloping the 1909-built auto row-era building at 1400 E Pike into a new two-level office on the edge of Pike/Pine. Continue reading →

Africatown announces $13.84M deal to acquire ‘Community Home’ shelter site

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The Africatown Community Land Trust announced Wednesday it has acquired the former Keiro Rehabilitation and Care Center with plans to transition the property into a “culturally responsive” shelter at 16th and Yesler in the Central District.

The community development group said it is paying $13.84 million for the property with funding sources for the acquisition including the City of Seattle and the State of Washington.

“We are excited by this opportunity to bring a new model to reduce the overrepresentation of our community members in the houselessness crisis and the long term goal to address the need for affordable housing in the Central District and Seattle,” K. Wyking Garrett, president and CEO of Africatown Community Land Trust said in a statement. Continue reading →

Did the City of Seattle get fleeced in recent Capitol Hill apartment deals? Recent purchases say math works out

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Conservative media around the globe are taking turns blasting the City of Seattle for acquiring new housing providing “panoramic views of the Puget Sound and the Space Needle” in its purchase of three new Capitol Hill apartment buildings, saying the city got taken in its payout of nearly $48 million for the three properties.

“The apartments work out at an average of $300,000 per unit – two to three times higher than what it costs to build,” the Daily Mail reports. “From homeless tents to penthouses with views,” Fox News hissed in its report on the deals, claiming developers say the price is “two to three times higher than what it costs them to build.”

But the most recent apartment building real estate deals in the neighborhood show that the city’s math might be right on and that the Daily Mail and Fox takes don’t add up. Continue reading →

Real estate and religion: Closures planned at two Capitol Hill and Central District area Catholic churches

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(Image: St. Patrick’s)

(Image: King County)

A national trend away from organized religion will be manifesting itself in the Capitol Hill and Central District area as a pair of Catholic churches will close.

The precise timelines are not firm, but the Archdiocese of Seattle has announced that St. Patrick’s and St. Mary’s churches will both close, and their congregations will be merged with other nearby churches.

A survey released by Gallup earlier this year found that 47% of Americans belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, the lowest number ever recorded by the organization, and the first time its dipped below 50%. In 1999, the number was 70%, a number that had been relatively stable since the 1930’s, Gallup found.

The numbers are even more acute in Washington, where a 2018 study found that 47 percent of state residents identified as nonreligious, compared to 33% nationwide. The state ranked as the sixth least religious at that time.

As those trends have filtered to the local level, religious institutions have started closing. Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church closed back in 2019. And the Progressive Missionary Baptist Church closed back in 2016. Next up are likely to be the pair of Catholic churches.

What happens to the buildings? “It’s part of the process, but it’s way at the end,” said Helen McClenahan, managing director of communications for the Archdiocese of Seattle. Continue reading →

Thanks to Seattle’s Notice of Intent to Sell ordinance, residents hoping for chance to buy their Capitol Hill apartment building get window of opportunity

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Earlier this month, CHS reported on Capitol Hill’s La Quinta apartments hitting the market and the hopes of residents of the landmarks-protected building at 17th and Denny to have a shot at purchasing the property even as its listing was already live and a sale nearly ready to close.

Thanks to Seattle’s still relatively new under-used Notice of Intent to Sell ordinance, those residents now have at least 30 days to organize a possible bid.

According to an aide to City Councilmember Lisa Herbold, her office looked into the planned sale after learning of the situation through CHS’s coverage and found that at least one unit in the building is renting at rates affordable to those earning no more than 80% of the area median income, requiring the building owners to participate in the Notice of Intent to Sell program. Continue reading →

They won landmarks protections — Now residents of Capitol Hill’s La Quinta apartments want chance to buy the building

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(Image: Viva La Quinta/Jesse L. Young)

With an early start, the residents and neighbors of Capitol Hill’s Frederick Anhalt-designed La Quinta apartments have already worked together to win landmarks protections for the 1927-built complex at 17th and Denny.

Now they are in a rush to try to rally together to buy the landmarked building before a sale closes that will move the property into new hands after the death of longtime owner Ken Van Dyke in early 2020.

Residents have started a petition calling on the ownership company set up for the building to hold off on a planned sale and give the neighbors a chance to match the price:

Less than two weeks ago, we discovered that our home was being put on the market. As tenants, we are willing and able to purchase La Quinta collectively, as a cooperative. However, our landlord has refused us the opportunity to purchase, preferring to sell to a buyer who can purchase in cash. Continue reading →

A new backdrop for Pike/Pine, Broadway gas station get branding overhaul

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Exploring the stubbornly reopening shops, cafes, restaurants, and bars of Capitol Hill might leave you feeling like you are in a different neighborhood. It has been a long time and things have changed. At Broadway and Pike, CHS did a double take at one of those uneasy changes.

The shifting tides of the major players in the transnational petrochemical industry have quietly redesigned a core corner of the neighborhood. The megacorp red and yellow are gone. In their place? A fresh coat of advertising nostalgia orange. The Broadway Shell is now a Broadway 76. The new look provides a new backdrop for nights out in Pike/Pine.

Owners Cyrus and Jinus Fiuzi purchased the station and the Capitol Hill property in 2009 for $1.35 million from Shell’s real estate wing and continued to operate the business under the brand. Previously, Shell acquired the property in its merger with Texaco. Operating a gas station in modern day Seattle is a complicated affair. The Fiuzis’ company must maintain licenses related to liquid fuel, underground storage, “vapor product,” retailing, tobacco sales, and liquor sales, in addition to being responsible for environmental factors of the business and the property.

CHS asked the gas station’s owners about the change but they declined comment.

Phillips 66, owner of the 76 brand, has been upgrading its stations and its “wholesale branded business, which encompasses some 6,500 sites in the U.S.” Continue reading →

Buoyed by pro-housing support, 8-story 12th Ave development gets design board ‘OK’

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Runberg Architecture Group’s design is a “go” on 12th Ave

The land is currently occupied by the former Car Tender auto shop, Bergman’s Lock and Key, and the old Scratch Deli building

Capitol Hill’s “most debated” new development can move forward to construction.

Wednesday night, facing a wave of support from pro-housing advocates and residents providing public comment, and despite concerns from representatives for neighborhood groups, the East Design Review Board gave its support to the plan for a new eight-story, 130+ unit mixed-use apartment building with an 83-car underground parking lot set to rise on the properties now home to a former auto garage and set of small businesses on 12th Ave at E Olive St. Continue reading →

Eight stories, 134 units on 12th Ave — Largest new development coming to Capitol Hill also its most debated

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The future 12th at E Olive St? (Image: Runberg Architecture Group)

The largest development taking shape on Capitol Hill has, perhaps unsurprisingly, also generated the most pushback from neighbors and the biggest challenges for the city’s design review process.

The Mack Real Estate group has plans for an eight-story building at 1710 12th Ave, just north of the affordable 12th Ave Arts development. The land is currently occupied by the former Car Tender auto shop, Bergman’s Lock and Key, and the old Scratch Deli building. The market rate, mixed-use project set to reshape the block started the design review process in late 2019 and returns, now, for the final step still facing stacks of questions and following iterations that have seen at least six different design concepts presented for review.

In its most recent pass in front of the East Design Review Board in November, frustration about the project and concerns about its relationship to the lower heights and smaller scale housing off of 12th bled through. The board split in its opinion that the project could move forward with two of the board members siding with public comment and voting to make the project return for yet another early design guidance session “to consider additional massing alternatives and response to context.” The proposed building related too much to the larger scale of the 12th Ave Arts development and not enough to the small apartment buildings and houses nearby.

“The Board recognized the large volume of public comment with concerns regarding the height, bulk, and scale of this project relative to recent up-zoning changes, the existing context and the adjacent lower intensity zone and agreed that these issues were of critical importance in developing the design of the project,” the report on the most review session for the project reads.

1710 12th Ave

Land Use application to allow an 8-story, 134-unit apartment building with retail. Parking for 83 vehicles proposed. Existing buildings to be demolished. Design Review Early Design Guidance done under 3035745-EG. View Design Proposal  (32 MB)    

Review Meeting
July 28, 2021 7:00 PM

Meeting: https://bit.ly/Mtg3036725

Listen Line: 206-207-1700 Passcode: 146 305 3476
Comment Sign Up: https://bit.ly/Comment3036725
Review Phase
REC–Recommendation

Project Number

Planner
Joseph Hurley — email comments: [email protected]

But there is light at the end of the long process tunnel. Wednesday, the project team enters what could be the final review for the project believing its has found solutions for the problems of scale and relationship to the neighborhood.

“Massing and modulation have been adjusted to reflect/reference this smaller scale and create an appropriate transition,” the design review packet reads. “The preferred scheme does draw inspiration from the neighboring 12th Ave Arts building, but now also incorporates inspiration from the neighborhood to the north, west and east as well.” Continue reading →

Capitol Hill tech firm Add3 eyeing deal for new headquarters, space for new club in former R Place building

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(Image: CHS)

The likely future for a history-rich building formerly the longtime home of an icon in Capitol Hill gay nightlife could be a new headquarters for one of the neighborhood’s home-grown tech firms while making space for a new player to enter the Pike/Pine club scene.

Digital marketing firm Add3 is under contract to purchase the 1917-built Bothell Motors garage building at E Pine and Boylston, according to construction permit documents. You might know it is as the former home of R Place.

According to the documents, the Capitol Hill tech firm is making plans to purchase the building and overhaul it as a new headquarters with offices and meeting rooms. The effort would include “core and shell renovation” of the three-story, unreinforced masonry building, maintaining nightlife use on the ground floors and creating new office space above. The $1.1 million construction project with Mallet Construction would overhaul the first two floors formerly home to the longtime Capitol Hill gay bar in preparation for a new tenant. Continue reading →